Member Avatar for apothus

Hi
Using NVIDIA NF24-ALH Motherboard with socket A AMD3000XP
I have been unable to boot my pc. The first two fails got a two tone constant warning tone. Now further attempts to boot just get a long single tone. Have never been able to get anything to the monitor and floppy drive busy LED stays illuminated. Have been unable to locate list of warning tones for my motherboard, nothing in my manual.

If anyone could shed any light on this fault I would be most greatfull.

Regards.

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This thread shows a typical Socket A POST problem on an NF24-ALH where beep patterns and a persistently lit floppy LED left the system halted before any video. gave useful first steps about reseating RAM, and confirmed the fault ended up being the video card. The checklist below focuses on safe, repeatable isolation so future readers can find the bad part faster.

  • Start minimal: unplug power, disconnect all drives and nonessential cards, leave only CPU, a single known-good DIMM (try each slot), system speaker, and the video device needed to get a picture. Boot and note any beeps or LED behavior.
  • If the floppy LED stays on, remove floppy power and ribbon cable to rule out a stuck controller or short. Do the same for HDD/CD cables if needed.
  • Swap video early: older boards and AGP cards fail often. If you can boot with onboard video or a known-good spare card, that isolates the GPU quickly.
  • Memory isolation: test one DIMM at a time in each slot to separate bad RAM from a bad slot. Reseat modules and clean contacts gently with isopropyl if dirty.
  • Clear CMOS (jumper or battery remove) before replacing parts that might be caused by corrupted settings.
  • Visual and PSU checks: inspect caps on motherboard and GPU for bulging/leakage and ensure the ATX connector is fully seated. Check voltages only if comfortable with a multimeter.
  • Use a POST speaker. Beep codes vary by vendor — they’re useful, but component isolation (remove/add parts) is the most reliable verification.

Cautions: observe ESD precautions, avoid forcing connectors, and do BIOS updates only after a stable POST. Keeping one basic spare VGA card is a cheap diagnostic tool for older systems.

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Member Avatar for Thong_Ispector

Both AMI and Award bios use 2 beepe and or 1 beep to indicate a memory error.

Pull the ram chips and reseat them or try a different ram chip if you have one.

If you have multiple chips on the board pull all but one try to boot then swap it out for another to see if the problem goes away..

Good Luck...

Edit,
I checked and found your MB should have Phoenix Bios...

I found a link to Phoenix Beep codes here...
http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm#08

They are all in groups of four beeps ie: 1, 3, 1, 1 etc

Hope it helps...

Reseating ram can never hurt...

Your two beep error might indicate a keyboard eror problem

Try pulling the keyboard and mouse and booting to see if you get to an error message...

Member Avatar for apothus

Cheers for the reply man, you pointed me in the right direction.
It has Award bios, which states it is a Memory/Video warning, and it turned
out to be my video card.
So have ordered a Radeon 9800pro, felt I should treat myself :D

Anyway thanks again for the support.

apothus.

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